Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series
Page 123
Solvuntur tabulœ? May we laugh and go?
Well, — not before (in filial gratitude
To Law, who, mighty mother, waves adieu)
We take on us to vindicate Law’s self —
For, — yea, Sirs, — curb the start, curtail the stare! —
Remains that we apologize for haste
I’ the Law, our lady who here bristles up
“And my procedure? Did the Court mistake?
“(Which were indeed a misery to think)
“Did not my sentence in the former stage
“O’ the business bear a title plain enough?
“Decretum” — I translate it word for word —
“‘Decreed: the priest, for his complicity
“‘I’ the flight and deviation of the dame,
“‘As well as for unlawful intercourse,
“‘Is banished three years:’ crime and penalty,
“Declared alive. If he be taxed with guilt
“How can you call Pompilia innocent?
“If they be innocent, have I been just?”
Gently, O mother, judge men! — whose mistake
Is in the poor misapprehensiveness.
The Titulus a-top of your decree
Was but to ticket there the kind of charge
You in good time would arbitrate upon.
Title is one thing, — arbitration’s self,
Probatio, quite another possibly.
Subsistit, there holds good the old response.
Responsio tradita, we must not stick,
Quod non sit attendendus Titulus,
To the Title, sed Probatio, but to Proof,
Resultans ex processu, and result
O’ the Trial, and the style of punishment,
Et pœna per sententiam imposita;
All is tentative, till the sentence come,
Mere indication of what men expect,
And nowise an assurance they shall find.
Lords, what if we permissibly relax
The tense bow, as the law-god Phœbus bids,
Relieve our gravity at close of speech?
I traverse Rome, feel thirsty, need a draught,
Look for a wine-shop, find it by the bough
Projecting as to say “Here wine is sold!”
So much I know, — ”sold:” but what sort of wine?
Strong, weak, sweet, sour, home made or foreign drink?
That much must I discover by myself.
“Wine is sold,” quoth the bough, “but good or bad,
“Find, and inform us when you smack your lips!”
Exactly so, Law hangs her title forth,
To show she entertains you with such case
About such crime: come in! she pours, you quaff.
You find the Priest good liquor in the main,
But heady and provocative of brawls.
Remand the residue to flask once more,
Lay it low where it may deposit lees,
I’ the cellar: thence produce it presently,
Three years the brighter and the better!
Thus,
Law’s son, have I bestowed my filial help,
And thus I end, tenax proposito;
Point to point as I purposed have I drawn
Pompilia, and implied as terribly
Guido: so, gazing, let the world crown Law —
Able once more, despite my impotence,
And helped by the acumen of the Court,
To eliminate, display, make triumph truth!
What other prize than truth were worth the pains?
There’s my oration — much exceeds in length
That famed Panegyric of Isocrates,
They say it took him fifteen years to pen.
But all those ancients could say anything!
He put in just what rushed into his head,
While I shall have to prune and pare and print.
This comes of being born in modern times
With priests for auditory. Still, it pays.
The Pope
LIKE to Ahasuerus, that shrewd prince,
I will begin, — as is, these seven years now,
My daily wont, — and read a History
(Written by one whose deft right hand was dust
To the last digit, ages ere my birth)
Of all my predecessors, Popes of Rome:
For though mine ancient early dropped the pen,
Yet others picked it up and wrote it dry,
Since of the making books there is no end.
And so I have the Papacy complete
From Peter first to Alexander last;
Can question each and take instruction so.
Have I to dare, — I ask, how dared this Pope?
To suffer? Suchanone, how suffered he?
Being about to judge, as now, I seek
How judged once, well or ill, some other Pope;
Study some signal judgment that subsists
To blaze on, or else blot, the page which seals
The sum up of what gain or loss to God
Came of His one more Vicar in the world.
So, do I find example, rule of life;
So, square and set in order the Next page,
Shall be stretched smooth o’er my own funeral cyst.
Eight hundred years exact before the year
I was made Pope, men made Formosus Pope,
Say Sigebert and other chroniclers.
Ere I confirm or quash the Trial here
Of Guido Franceschini and his friends,
Read, — how there was a ghastly Trial once
Of a dead man by a live man, and both, Popes:
Thus — in the antique penman’s very phrase.
“Then Stephen, Pope and seventh of the name,
“Cried out, in synod as he sat in state,
“While choler quivered on his brow and beard,
“‘Come into court, Formosus, thou lost wretch,
“‘That claimedst to be late the Pope as I!’
“And at the word, the great door of the church
“Flew wide, and in they brought Formosus’ self,
“The body of him, dead, even as embalmed
“And buried duly in the Vatican
“Eight months before, exhumed thus for the nonce.
“They set it, that dead body of a Pope,
“Clothed in pontific vesture now again,
“Upright on Peter’s chair as if alive.
“And Stephen, springing up, cried furiously
“‘Bishop of Porto, wherefore didst presume
“‘To leave that see and take this Roman see,
“‘Exchange the lesser for the greater see,
“‘ — A thing against the canons of the Church?’
“Then one (a Deacon who, observing forms,
“Was placed by Stephen to repel the charge,
“Be advocate and mouthpiece of the corpse)
“Spoke as he dared, set stammeringly forth
“With white lips and dry tongue, — as but a youth,
“For frightful was the corpse-face to behold, —
“How nowise lacked there precedent for this.
“But when, for his last precedent of all,
“Emboldened by the Spirit, out he blurts
“‘And, Holy Father, didst not thou thyself
“‘Vacate the lesser for the greater see,
“‘Half a year since change Arago for Rome?’
“‘ — Ye have the sin’s defence now, synod mine!’
“Shrieks Stephen in a beastly froth of rage:
“‘Judge now betwixt him dead and me alive!
“‘Hath he intruded or do I pretend?
“‘Judge, judge!’ — breaks wavelike one whole foam of wrath.
“Whereupon they, being friends and followers,
“Said ‘Ay, thou art Christ’s Vicar, and not he!
“‘A way with what is frightful to behold!
“‘This act was uncanonic and a fault.’
“Then, swallowed up in rage, Stephen exclaimed
“‘So, guilty! So, remains I punish guilt!
“‘He is unpoped, and all he did I damn:
“‘The Bishop, that ordained him, I degrade:
“‘Depose to laics those he raised to priests:
“‘What they have wrought is mischief nor shall stand,
“‘It is confusion, let it vex no more!
“‘Since I revoke, annul and abrogate
“‘All his decrees in all kinds: they are void!
“‘In token whereof and warning to the world,
“‘Strip me yon miscreant of those robes usurped,
“‘And clothe him with vile serge befitting such!
“‘Then hale the carrion to the market-place;
“‘Let the town-hangman chop from his right hand
“‘Those same three fingers which he blessed withal;
“‘Next cut the head off, once was crowned forsooth:
“‘And last go fling all, fingers, head and trunk,
“‘In Tiber that my Christian fish may sup!’
“ — Either because of ΙΧΘΥΣ which means Fish
“And very aptly symbolises Christ,
“Or else because the Pope is Fisherman
“And seals with Fisher’s-signet. Anyway,
“So said, so done: himself, to see it done,
“Following the corpse, they trailed from street to street
“Till into Tiber wave they threw the thing.
“The people, crowded on the banks to see,
“Were loud or mute, wept or laughed, cursed or jeered,
“According as the deed addressed their sense;
“A scandal verily: and out spake a Jew
“‘Wot ye your Christ had vexed our Herod thus?’
“Now when, Formosus being dead a year,
“His judge Pope Stephen tasted death in turn,
“Made captive by the mob and strangled straight,
“Romanus, his successor for a month,
“Did make protest Formosus was with God,
“Holy, just, true in thought and word and deed.
“Next Theodore, who reigned but twenty days,
“Therein convoked a synod, whose decree
“Did reinstate, repope the late unpoped,
“And do away with Stephen as accursed.
“So that when presently certain fisher-folk
“(As if the queasy river could not hold
“Its swallowed Jonas, but discharged the meal)
“Produced the timely product of their nets,
“The mutilated man, Formosus, — saved
“From putrefaction by the embalmer’s spice,
“Or, as some said, by sanctity of flesh, —
“‘Why, lay the body again’ bade Theodore
“‘Among his predecessors, in the church
“‘And burial-place of Peter!’ which was done.
“‘And’ addeth Luitprand ‘many of repute,
“‘Pious and still alive, avouch to me
“‘That as they bore the body up the aisle
“‘The saints in imaged row bowed each his head
“‘For welcome to a brother-saint come back.’
“As for Romanus and this Theodore,
“These two Popes, through the brief reign granted each,
“Could but initiate what John came to close
“And give the final stamp to: he it was,
“Ninth of the name, (I follow the best guides)
“Who, — in full synod at Ravenna held
“With Bishops seventy-four, and present too
“Eude King of France with his Archbishopry, —
“Did condemn Stephen, anathematise
“The disinterment, and make all blots blank.
“‘For,’ argueth here Auxilius in a place
“De Ordinationibus, ‘precedents
“‘Had been, no lack, before Formosus long,
“‘Of Bishops so transferred from see to see, —
“‘Marinus, for example’: read the tract.
“But, after John, came Sergius, reaffirmed
“The right of Stephen, cursed Formosus, nay
“Cast out, some say, his corpse a second time.
“And here, — because the matter went to ground,
“Fretted by new griefs, other cares of the age, —
“Here is the last pronouncing of the Church,
“Her sentence that subsists unto this day.
“Yet constantly opinion hath prevailed
“I’ the Church, Formosus was a holy man.”
Which of the judgments was infallible?
Which of my predecessors spoke for God?
And what availed Formosus that this cursed,
That blessed, and then this other cursed again?
“Fear ye not those whose power can kill the body
“And not the soul,” saith Christ “but rather those
“Can cast both soul and body into hell!”
John judged thus in Eight Hundred Ninety Eight,
Exact eight hundred years ago to-day
When, sitting in his stead, Vice-gerent here,
I must give judgment on my own behoof.
So worked the predecessor: now, my turn!
In God’s name! Once more on this earth of God’s,
While twilight lasts and time wherein to work,
I take His staff with my uncertain hand,
And stay my six and fourscore years, my due
Labour and sorrow, on His judgment-seat,
And forthwith think, speak, act, in place of Him —
The Pope for Christ. Once more appeal is made
From man’s assize to mine: I sit and see
Another poor weak trembling human wretch
Pushed by his fellows, who pretend the right,
Up to the gulf which, where I gaze, begins
From this world to the next, — gives way and way,
Just on the edge over the awful dark:
With nothing to arrest him but my feet.
He catches at me with convulsive face,
Cries “Leave to live the natural minute more!”
While hollowly the avengers echo “Leave?
“None! So has he exceeded man’s due share
“In man’s fit licence, wrung by Adam’s fall,
“To sin and yet not surely die, — that we,
“All of us sinful, all with need of grace,
“All chary of our life, — the minute more
“Or minute less of grace which saves a soul, —
“Bound to make common cause with who craves time,
“ — We yet protest against the exorbitance
“Of sin in this one sinner, and demand
“That his poor sole remaining piece of time
“Be plucked from out his clutch: put him to death!
“Punish him now! As for the weal or woe
“Hereafter, God grant mercy! Man be just,
“Nor let the felon boast he went scot-free!”
And I am bound, the solitary judge,
To weigh the worth, decide upon the plea,
And either hold a hand out, or withdraw
A foot and let the wretch drift to the fall.
Ay, and while thus I dally, dare perchance
Put fancies for a comfort ‘twixt this calm
And yonder passion that I have to bear, —
As if reprieve were possible for both
Prisoner and Pope, — how easy were reprieve!
A touch o’ the hand-bell here, a hasty word
To those who wait, and wonder they wait long,
I’ the passage there, and I should gain the life! —
Yea, though I flatter me with fancy thus,
I know it is but nature’s craven-trick.
The case is over, judgment at an
end,
And all things done now and irrevocable:
A mere dead man is Franceschini here,
Even as Formosus centuries ago.
I have worn through this sombre wintry day,
With winter in my soul beyond the world’s,
Over these dismalest of documents
Which drew night down on me ere eve befell, —
Pleadings and counter-pleadings, figure of fact
Beside fact’s self, these summaries to wit, —
How certain three were slain by certain five:
I read here why it was, and how it went,
And how the chief o’ the five preferred excuse,
And how law rather chose defence should lie, —
What argument he urged by wary word
When free to play off wile, start subterfuge,
And what the unguarded groan told, torture’s feat
When law grew brutal, outbroke, overbore
And glutted hunger on the truth, at last, —
No matter for the flesh and blood between.
All’s a clear rede and no more riddle now.
Truth, nowhere, lies yet everywhere in these —
Not absolutely in a portion, yet
Evolvable from the whole: evolved at last
Painfully, held tenaciously by me.
Therefore there is not any doubt to clear
When I shall write the brief word presently
And chink the hand-bell, which I pause to do.
Irresolute? Not I more than the mound
With the pine-trees on it yonder! Some surmise,
Perchance, that since man’s wit is fallible,
Mine may fail here? Suppose it so, — what then?
Say, — Guido, I count guilty, there’s no babe
So guiltless, for I misconceive the man!
What’s in the chance should move me from my mind?
If, as I walk in a rough country-side,
Peasants of mine cry “Thou art he can help,
“Lord of the land and counted wise to boot:
“Look at our brother, strangling in his foam,
“He fell so where we find him, — prove thy worth!”
I may presume, pronounce, “A frenzy-fit,
“A falling-sickness or a fever-stroke!
Breathe a vein, copiously let blood at once!”
So perishes the patient, and anon
I hear my peasants — ”All was error, lord!
“Our story, thy prescription: for there crawled
“In due time from our hapless brother’s breast
“The serpent which had stung him: bleeding slew
“Whom a prompt cordial had restored to health.”
What other should I say than “God so willed:
“Mankind is ignorant, a man am I:
“Call ignorance my sorrow not my sin!”
So and not otherwise, in after-time,
If some acuter wit, fresh probing, sound